Archeological Evidence for the Jesus-Impersonator?
Offline So I've been thinking long and hard about the Jesus-impersonator argument. According to a lot of people here, Jesus is another myth made up, since there are all these other people/god-myths who are very similar to him. Here is a sample list I found from a while back.
Chrishna, of India, born on December 25, his mother was a virgin, mother's name was Maia. His uncle, Kamsa, the ruler at the time of his birth sought to kill him. Chrishna escaped death by being smuggled out of the area to safety (sounds like Herod and Jesus does it not?).
Mithra, of Persia, born on December 25, his birth was witnessed by Shepherds that brought gifts to honor him. He was styled as a Mediator between God and Man.
Horus of Egypt, born on December 25. His mother, Isis, gave birth to him in the swamp, she was warned by the god Thoth, to flee and conceal the child from the evil Set.
Buddha, of India, born on December 25, his mother's name was Maya she was a virgin. He was immaculately conceived, and at birth, he announced that he was a savior to the world. His birth was announced by a star. At his birth, he was visited by Wise Men who declared that they had seen Signs of his birth.
Beddou (Fot), was a god of the orient born 1027 BC, his mother was a virgin. The king sought to kill him at birth. The god child was saved by shepherds, and lived in the desert till he reached the age of thirty, at which time he commenced teaching his spiritual doctrine to that religion.
Quetzalcoatl, a god the Western Hemisphere, was born of a virgin. He sojourned in the wilderness, fasted forty days and was crucified. He was represented as the God of light.
Hercules son of the god Zeus, predestined by birth to inherit the throne of Argos. Hera tried to kill him while in his crib. He was sent away to the countryside where he became a shepherd.
Attis, of Phrygia, his mother was a virgin, her name was Nana. He was a shepherd, and reported to have died by self emasculation under a pine tree. He was alleged to have risen from the dead at Easter i.e. The vernal Equinox.
Tammuz was hailed as the only begotten son of the god Ea. His mother was a virgin, by the name of Ishtar.
Now, obviously, if these are true, then we ought to just dismiss Chrisitanity as yet another myth. But the evidence...well, seems too good. So my question is this: is there any archeological evidence for these guys and the other Jesus-like myths, or were they found some other way? Or, did various people just make them up to discredit Christianity? Personally, I don't put too much faith in them, but hey, I'd like to be proven wrong on that thought.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
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Master Jedi Dan said, "But the evidence...well, seems too good."
What evidence?
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
Hmmm...well, I guess I should rephrase that question to something like, "But the number of Jesus-look-alikes...well, seem like there are too many for it to be true". But is there any evidence for them?
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
There is no Archelogical evidence for any of them, but there are lots of tales of such beings. There is also a lot of archelogical evidence that people believed they existed, but none that supports the idea they really existed.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
So what we have here is a number of tales/stories passed down by generations?
Do you know of any links to sites or good books on this topic of archeological evidence for these tales?
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
I'm currently reading The Christ Conspiracy that seems to have a lot of pertinant information.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
Of your list I'm not aware of the historical Buddha being questioned. As he never presented himself as a messiah I'm not sure Buddha is a good fit in that group, though there is surrounding myth.
That there is no Roman documentation of Jesus is no small matter. They were pretty adept at record-keeping; the trial-execution of a subversive in their most difficult colony should have been noted somewhere.
The one Jewish reference is bogus, a Christian interpolation. That leaves Christian writings decades afterwards. Historical accuracy and scholarship are not in those cards.
How Christ was alchemized will probably never be known for certain. It's a compelling question for me. Why did that particular messiah story ignite? There was contemporary competition (Mithras, Apollonius) equally popular.
It may be, as some have contended, that Paul was the inventor. His writings, however, seem to be a response to a story already formed. An intriguing and thorny question.
If I'm not mistaken, the list of myths pre-date the story of jesus. Hence, folks didn't make them up to discredit xianity because it didn't exist yet.
I've always thought that the jesus story was just one more myth like the ones that came before it.
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Hardly any Christians know about these other mythical gods. In the documentary "The God Who Wasn't There" they interviewed several people outside a Billy Graham Revival and none knew anything about the mythical gods that pre-dated Jesus.
It's funny that many were born on December 25th. I wonder what's up with that?
The fact that nothing was written about an earthly Jesus until at least 40 years after he supposedly died is very suspicious about there being a historical Jesus. After all, how the hell could anybody remember exactly what Jesus said forty years earlier? I'm 55 years old and I don't have a clue of the exact words anybody said to me in 1967.
I think my daddy may have said, "We're going to the lake this weekend. Don't have any friends over while we're gone." But he might have said, "We're going to the lake this weekend so PARTY YOUR ASS OFF while we're gone."
Who really knows.
Frosty's coming back someday. Will you be ready?
Yes, but what I'm asking is if people today (or somtime in, say, the last 500 years) somehow created these myths to discredit christianity. That's all.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
Unless, of course, satan planted those myths in advance to deceive us.
There are no theists on operating tables.
That just made me think of something. How can all these other Gods be born on December 25th if that date is part of the Roman calendar? Yes, I understand how all the Roman/Greek gods could be, but what about those pre-dating the calendar, or those, like Buddha born outside of Roman influence? And I think it has something to do with the position of the stars. Isn't the winter solstice on the 21st?
Folks attending a Billy Graham event are suppose to know about mythology? What color is the sky in that world?
The reason December 25th is the birth date of so many gods is that ancient people were very observeriant of what the sun did. Their celebrations/holy days were very much attached to the significant changes in the what the sun was doing. December 21st is the day of the winter solstice. This is the shortest day of the year, the day when the sun stopped moving south and away from the observers in the northern hemisphere. The signifigance of Dec 25th is that it is the first day that the ancient observers could detect that the sun was once again moving north/coming back. It was a time of celebration, their sun god was returning/was reborn, i.e - the sun/son god was born on December 25th.
http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/xmas.htm
Although I dont agree with every point in this movie, the overall explanation of Christianity and the December 25th issue is pretty good: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5216975979627863972&hl=en
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
It speaks more to the general education level of those who are buffaloed by the myths than anything else.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
What do you expect form a religion that holds facts, evidence and rational thinking with disdain? Christiantity, like many religions hold faith (the holding of something to be true with no or contrary evidence) in such high esteem.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca